Greatest Gaming Console of All Time

Im gonna have to say the super NES. It brought me Final Fantasy 2 and 3, Super Punch out and Super Metriod After that its the original nes with Super Dodgeball, Blades of Steel, skate of Die, Tecmo bowl and River City Ransom

 

To not have Atari 2600 in the poll is the stupid part. You don't have to vote for it (NES is a superb choice), but not even listing in the poll?

I'm not that old, and I see where everyone is coming from.

I had ET for Atari. I never did understand that game...

 

LoL i remember that game...couldn't figure it out and i just would get frustrrated and throw it across the room.

 

This is a tough one for me. I'd really, really, really would like to go with the NES, but I don't really have that much of an attachment to it. From a historical perspective, it was quite a machine, but I was too young to realize it at the time. Considering this as the reason why I'm picking the NES as the best, all the pre-NES consoles also are out of the running in my list.

The Genesis, Gamecube, N64, and Xbox are all ok machines, but they were far from the best in their own generations, IMO (although the Genesis was pretty cool). I really don't see what's up with all the Xbox votes.

I personally am more or less split between the SNES, PS1, and PS2. Each console seemed to take me to a whole new level in gaming, at least IMO. The SNES offered me my first major gaming experience and I have so many nostalgic memories from it. SMW, Final Fantasy 4+6 (two of my favorites in the series), LoZ, Mortal Kombat, Metroid, and the list goes on. The PS1 was the home for the later Final Fantasy games (7+8+9, and Tactics), as well as other RPGs (Xenogears), my favorite genre. It also offered games in other genres like the SNES did (MGS, GT, RE), while also providing some more mature games. The PS2 pretty much took what the PS1 did well and expanded on it (FF, MGS, GT), and even offered some new franchises (R&C, Jak, Sly Cooper, DMC, KH ), not to mention being the console where GTA took off.

I guess a tiebreaker for this could be market domination. IIRC, the SNES and Genesis were somewhat close in sales, and the PS1, while more or less dominating its generation, got more competition than what the PS2 is getting. The PS2 has had insane success this generation from a sales perspective. ~130 games have sold >500K for the PS2, compared to ~42 and ~24 for the Xbox and GC respectively (if you can call that respectable). It has also shipped ~85 million consoles, compared to ~20 and ~17-18 million for the Xbox and GC (the GC may be a little low, but I', pretty sure it is under the Xbox total). Last I read, the PS2 had a tie ratio (software to hardware ratio) of ~9, which is much higher than the Xbox and GC (forgot their exact numbers, but I don't think it was much more than 4-5). Considering the PS2 still has some more "tricks" up its sleeve with the new design, price cuts, and price bundles, it can certainly break records as the best selling console ever...well, as long as Sony can make the darn things quick enough.

While this is true for the most part, the best graphics for each console don't look too much different from each other, which is pretty bad considering when the PS2 hardware was locked down. With amazing developers taking advantage of each console's strengths, the end results on each console aren't that much different. Games like RE4, Metroid, and the new LoZ all look amazing on the GC; GT4, Wanda and the Colossus, and MGS 3 all look amazing on the PS2; and games like Ninja Gaiden, Halo, and DOA look amazing on the Xbox. There are even funny examples where a PS2 game in a genre will look better than anything Xbox has in that genre. GT4 and Forza come to mind, and the WWE genre as well (Smackdown vs Raw (PS2) and WWE RAW 2 (Xbox), or something like that).

Of course, multiplatform titles are a whole other story.

While the Xbox library has gotten better, it is still severely lacking in some genres. For example, if I were a fan of Japanese S/RPG's, or practically anything from a Japanese developer just about, the Xbox would probably not offer anything to my interests, something the PS2 and even the GC, to a degree, can. Platformers and games like Katamari Damacy and Ico are also hard to find on the Xbox. There are probably other genres where this is true as well. To make matters worse, if Microsoft really wants to get the next generation started ASAP, then they probably won't fix this problem either.

You know what, now that I think of it, I forgot that the best console ever was actually this:

 

Hey, I hear what you're saying, but I'm looking at the issue in this way:

Can you play with T-mac and Co. in the Toyota Centre and customize so many features of the game with Atari or Nintendo? No, you can with Xbox.

Can you race with tons of different cars in locales around the world that look like the real thing with those older systems? No, but you can with Xbox.

So you see where I'm going with this. Today's systems just allow you to do so much more. Then, it is my opinion that Xbox does that better than the PS2 or Gamecube.


I gather you are arguing for the Atari because it came out when you did most of your video game playing. Well, the launch of the Xbox is when I played a lot myself. So, I guess it all just depends on what timeframe you were a gamer.

With that said, Xbox is still #1, in my opinion.

 

Off topic, but is there a new gaming console coming out in the near future? I want to buy one for my grandson and I don't want to buy something if it will be obsolete in the near future. I would much rather wait and buy him something new and state of the art.

If there isn't any new system coming out, any suggestions on what I should buy? I hear the Xbox is nice.

 

That's a good point, when it comes down to it it's all a matter of opinion.

 

Near future, I doubt it but PS3 and XBOX2 shouldn't be more than a few years away.

 

I can't believe I just read a post on how the XBOX is the greatest system of all time. And I thought the vote count was crazy.

I mean...I love my XBOX. It's become my favorite possession this generation...but come on. Other than a hard drive and online (which the PC already had) there's nothing at all the XBOX has done that was original in any way.


Anyhow...

The argument many of you are having breaks down to what is constitutes the term 'greatest'. I don't think there's any doubt as to the 'revolutionary' status of systems such as the Intellivision and 2600.

But they were, essentially, the building blocks.

The reason I feel the NES is more in line with the 'greatest' of all time is because it had a bigger impact on what the industry has become and the shape it took.

The franchises and creativity that were put into place by the work on the NES really is more the origins of what we see today. The Intellivision and 2600 games are too basic to really impact the industry in terms of design and gameplay - two things which are more important, IMO, than anything when talking about video games.

Actual level design and variance, saving your games, characters and mascots, terms like 'platformer' and 'shooter' - while not all these were invented by games on the NES, they took them to a level unseen before...and closer to what we've got today.

Jumping through levels with Mario Bros, learning our early sports game strategies with Pro Wrestling and Ice Hockey, learning what cool action stages are with Ninja Gaiden, what RPGs would be like with Final Fantasy, etc. etc.

2600 and the like taught us we could have video games in our homes. NES taught us what we could do with them. To me that's more important.


Anyway....just the way I look at it.

 

XBox2 is this fall, isn't it? I think MS is trying to beat Sony by a year....

There's no way I would vote for XBox as the greatest console of all time (and I have one for this generation), but...

Maybe a decade from now people will look back and say the XBox defined online gaming for the everyman... Isn't that possible in the same way people are now saying that NES defined the way games could be? (Rokkit - your post is brilliant - I agree with your take completely.)

 

I remember when I was very young (probably about 4 or 5) I went to my Aunt's house around 1987... her son, who was probably in his late teens, had a copy of E.T...

I played that game and even as a small child I became so incredibly aggravated and disgusted with that game..

Did anyone ever beat it? Could you beat it? WTF WAS THE POINT

 

ET was the one that was buried, correct?

That smile is freaky.

 

If those are your criteria for the best console, then it looks like the Phantom will be the greatest one ever, then it will be dethroned by the Xbox2, which will then be dethroned by the Revolution and/or PS3, which will then be dethroned by an EA console that costs $500, which will then be dethroned by the next-next-gen consoles.

And of course, this is going along with the Xbox doing more than the GC and PS2. Again, if I want to immerse myself in a 60+ hour adventure with a great story, I can't really do that on the Xbox. If I want to play some solid platformers, can't really do that on the Xbox. If I want to become a strategist who battles for the future of China, I can't really do that on the Xbox.

This was pretty much answered already, but yeah, there will be some new systems coming out relatively soon. Xbox2 should be out in the fall, maybe as early as October. The PS3 should be out no later than by Christmas of '06 in the US (probably much sooner IMO), and the Nintendo Revolution could either be between those two or a little after the PS3. As for you should wait until one of these comes out or get a current-gen console, that depends on you. The next-gen consoles will be a lot more powerful than anything today and offer some unique features, but if you would rather spend ~$100 as opposed to ~$300, that wouldn't be a bad choice, especially with the amount of great games on each console today (might be a little hard to find great games on the 3 newer consoles considering how bad launch titles usually are).

As for which current-gen console to get, that will depend on several factors, although you can't really go wrong with any one of them. I obviously like the PS2 the best due to the variety in its library, but depending on what your grandson likes, a GC or Xbox could be more than enough.

 

RC Cola, great find. I had no recollection of the Cosmos.

No, Sonic was just better than Mario.
Personally, I really didn't like MK in either systems. I thought Street Fighters were more fun.
Between the 2 systems, I preferred Genesis slightly over SNES because of the Sonic games, all the shooters they had (especially the Thunder Force series - III & IV), and Gunstar Heroes.

I'm kind of surprised that Turbo gets no love. It was and still is the only system that can play it's Hue cards on it's handheld (which was colored). It had the most RPG titles for any systems during it's era (although I was never that big in RPG). It never gained the popularity that Genesis and SNES garnered due to it's lack of games in the US, but they had a ton of Japanese titles.

NeoGeo was a kickass system for it's Aracade feel fighting games, the problem is that's all it had plus a few shooters that looked awesome but gameplay wise had nothing in comparison to the Genesis and SNES at the time. There platform game just sucked.

I never had the chance to play the Atari system (family didn't have any money at the time), so I don't feel I qualify to grade that system. I never gotten the chance to play the NES games either. My first systems were the Genesis & SNES and I thought they were fantastic. Looking back at what NES was doing at the time, I'll have to agree that it was the most revolutionary console, but I also understand the case for Atari.

The current consoles have awesome graphics and sound. Some of the games are great, but overall I don't find todays game to be as fun as the ones in the 2D systems. I still find myself going back to the 2D systems, not because of nostalgia (well.. some of it is), but because those systems have games that are truely fun.

IMHO, the next revolutionary console will not be the PS3 or XBox2, it would be a VR system.

 

How old is he? If he's still kind of young, you might as well wait for the next gens which are just a year or 2 away. If he wants to game now, just get him a used console and buy used games.


I don't know when the next gens will be coming out, but it's my understanding that all 3 will be playable at this year's E3.

 

Hey MoonBus -- no offense, bro, but the proper word is its not it's.

it's is a contraction for "it is"
its is used to show possession